She looked at him. She knew what he wanted to know.
"It was five after three."
"And what, it took five, ten minutes tops to do the job, right?"
"Normally."
"Normally?"
"He got a phone call, Leo. I was in the closet with the safe. The phone rang and he talked to somebody. I think it was about the payoff. He was going to make it today. Then after he hung up he got up and went into the bathroom."
"And you snuck out."
"No. I stayed in the closet."
"How long?'
"Until he was asleep again. Until I heard him snore. I had to, Leo. It wasn't safe. You weren't there. I couldn't leave until – "
"You went into the void moon, didn't you?"
"It couldn't be helped, Leo, that's what I'm trying to – "
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
"Leo…"
"I told you. I only asked you to do one thing."
"It couldn't be helped. He got the call – a phone call at three in the morning, Leo. It was just bad luck."
Leo shook his head as if not listening.
"That's it then," he said. "We…"
He didn't finish. She closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Leo. I really am."
A buzzing sound near her left ear caught her attention. She looked around and saw a hummingbird suspended in air, its wings a blur.
It darted to the left and then swooped over to the pool, dropping to just a foot above the surface of the calm water. It seemed to be looking down at its reflection on the surface. It then dropped lower until it hit the surface. Its wings fluttered wildly but they were too heavy now for flight. The bird was trapped in the water.
"See what I'm saying," Leo said. "Dumb birds."
He started around the pool to get to the net so he could try to save the tiny creature's life.
27
JUST before getting to Los Angeles, Jack Karch pulled off the 10 Freeway at the Ontario airport exit and followed the signs to the long-term parking lot. He cruised up and down five long lanes of parked cars before he came upon a Towncar that was the same make and model as his, and with California plates. He double-parked behind the car and left the engine running while he got out with the battery-powered drill that was among the tools recovered by Grimaldi's thug from the air vent in room 2015.
The drill worked beautifully. Karch had the plates off the front and back of the Towncar in less than a minute. He shoved them under the front seat of his own car and drove toward the exit. He had been in the parking lot so briefly that the cashier at the pay booth told him he had made it under the ten-minute grace period and didn't have to pay a thing. He asked Karch if he had a spare smoke and Karch was happy to oblige.
He had made good time from Vegas, traveling at a steady 100 mph until he hit traffic close to L.A. The last fifty miles took him a frustrating hour to cover. He decided that people in Los Angeles drove the way people walk through casinos: oblivious to the fact that somebody else might be on the road and need to get somewhere. In downtown he branched off the 10 to the 101 and headed northwest toward the San Fernando Valley. Though it had been at least a couple years since the last time, Karch had been to L.A. plenty times enough to know how to get around. When it got down to specific streets and places, he had a Thomas Brothers map book in his briefcase on the seat next to him. It was a few years old but it would do. He was headed to the Valley because the cell phone number Grimaldi had retrieved from Martin as being the contact number for Leo Renfro had an 818 area code and Karch knew that covered the Valley, the city's northern suburban sprawl. It was his assumption that Leo would be found in the confines of his cell phone's area code.
He got off the freeway at the Ventura Boulevard exit and drove until he saw a gas station with a pay phone. He opened his briefcase on the passenger seat and withdrew the folded piece of Cleopatra Resort stationery with the name Leo Renfro and the cell phone number written on it. Below the fold was the name of the contact Grimaldi had in L.A. but Karch had no intention of calling the man. Under no circumstances did he plan to allow a perfect stranger – no matter who vouched for him – to have knowledge of his business and activities. That would just be stupid and he wasn't about to turn stupid. The same reasoning prevented Karch from using his law enforcement contacts to run traces on Leo Renfro and Cassie Black. This job had to be done without leaving a trail.
Surprisingly, the pay phone had an intact phone book. Karch pulled it up and started with the white pages on the unlikely chance that Leo Renfro was actually listed. He wasn't. Karch then turned through the commercial business pages until he came to the advertisements for cell phone service providers. Judging by the size and quality of their advertisements, he made a list of the bigger companies and their service numbers. He then used the edge of the shelf under the phone to crack open a roll of quarters he had bought at the change cage at the Cleo and made his first call.
The call was answered by a machine that offered a variety of pathway selections. Karch chose what he wanted and was transferred to billing inquiries, where he was put on hold for two minutes before a human voice picked up.
"Thank you for calling L.A. Cellular, how can I help you?"
"Yes," Karch said. "I've been called out of town indefinitely and I want to cancel service on my cell phone account."
After listening to a sales pitch for out-of-the-area service, the phone representative got down to business.
"Name?"
"Leo Renfro."
"Account number?"
"I don't have that handy at – "
"Cell phone number?"
"Oh, okay."
Karch glanced down at the paper and read off the number Martin had provided during his interrogation by Grimaldi.
"One moment, please."
"Take your time."
Karch heard the sound of typing on the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry, sir, I'm not showing an account with that name or – "
Karch hung up and immediately dialed the number of the next company on the list. He repeated the story over and over and finally hit the right company on the seventh call. Renfro had his account with a company called SoCal Cellular. When the service operator pulled up the account information on her computer, Karch immediately went in for the final con.
"I'm going to need you to send the final bill to my new address in Phoenix, if you don't mind."
"Not at all, sir. Let me first set up the close-out screen."
"Oh, sorry."
"No problem. It will just take me a second."
"Take your time."
Karch let a few seconds go by and then started in again.
"You know, I just realized I'll be back in L.A. at the end of next week for a few days to clear up some things. I may need the phone then. Maybe I should wait and do this after."
"It's up to you, sir."
"Uh… tell you what, let's wait, then."
"Okay, sir. Do you want to wait on the address change, too?"
Karch smiled. It always worked best when the victim prompted the con.
"No, let's do – tell you what, maybe I should wait. My mail's being forwarded from my old place anyway. But wait a minute, I forget offhand, which address does the bill go to? My home or office?"
"I don't know, sir. Four thousand Warner Boulevard, number five-twenty. Which is that?"
Karch didn't answer. He was writing the address down on the letterhead.
"Sir?"
"That's the office. So everything is fine. Let's leave it as is and I'll take care of it after next week."
"Okay. Thank you for calling SoCal Cellular."
He hung up the phone and went back to the car. He looked up the address in the index of the map book and learned he had been correct. The address was in the 818 area code. But it wasn't Los Angeles. It was Burbank. He started the Lincoln and checked the digital clock on the dash. It was exactly five o'clock. Not bad, he thought. He was getting close.
Fifteen minutes later the Lincoln was at the curb in front of a private mail drop and packaging shop at 4000 Warner Boulevard. He was not too disappointed. It would have been too easy and suspicious if the address he'd conned out of SoCal Cellular had led directly to Leo Renfro's front door.